Refresher on the Buffalo Rumblings moderation policy

Yesterday's breaking news regarding Buffalo Bills linebacker Nigel Bradham and marijuana possession - and, in particular, the ensuing discussion in the comments section that led to (literally) flag counts in the hundreds and hours spent moderating - prompts this reminder post about Buffalo Rumblings' moderation policy.

First of all: the entire policy is outlined in our community guidelines, linked here and accessible from the "About" drop-down on the site's navigation bar.

Functionally, here's what you need to know: if something offends you and it's not dealt with, that's because no one (or not enough people) flagged it. Alternately, if something innocuous is removed and you are offended by that, it's because many people flagged it. If you flagged something and it stays on the blog, that's because we deemed it okay to stay.

I have neither the time nor the patience to read every single comment posted on our pages seven days a week (though I do often read every comment in specific threads). We do not have a team of moderators at present, and Matt and I are the only people with the ability to hide or delete comments.

In short: we almost never moderate comments (or any other content) unless it's flagged multiple times by members of the community. If you want to bring something to our attention, the best way to do so isn't to comment on it, or especially to rip into whoever offended you - it's to flag it. Just click the "flag" link in the byline to whichever comment you deem inappropriate. See below:

See how easy that is? Much easier than getting all pissed off and starting a flame war.

By and large, the community has done a fantastic job of not abusing the flag feature. 95 percent of flagged comments have legitimately broken a blog rule, and only the remaining five percent are used for lame reasons like flagging everyone that disagrees with them, or something stupid like that. (Seriously, it happens more than it should. Come on, y'all.)

Hopefully, this clears up any confusion on how we do things on the moderation front. Also, to answer the question that you undoubtedly want to ask: I used the picture on this article because, frankly, it needed to be used somewhere.